Log in

User Name

Password

Remember Me?

Lost Password Recovery Form

If you have forgotten your username or password, you can request to have your username emailed to you and to reset your password. When you fill in your registered email address, you will be sent instructions on how to reset your password.

Feedback welcomed

Please give an overall critique of this work. I'm planning on adding sharper rim lights for an overhead moon but other than that please let me know what your impressions are and suggestions on how this can be improved. I can't decide if this is a good composition. Try to avoid paintovers unless you feel it to be necessary, and forgive the lack of context.

First impression - I don't know anything about the character. Sure there's a throny head (that oddly isn't blurred like the hands, neck, body), a cape, and goofy dynamics. Put some detail to it! What is it running around/near/towards/from.. etc.

Also it's pretty muddy for coloring. I get the dark blue forest, but the rest? Doesn't something stand out?

The Following User Says Thank You to modi123 For This Useful Post:

Thank you, your first impression helps. This is supposed to sort-of be splash art for a banshee type of character––maybe think of it like a trading card even. For the forest, is there anything you suggest? She's wearing a gown that has some green in it and I can strengthen that a bit unless you're thinking some color variety or contrast be added in the background instead. I want the focus to be on her face and hand, so I'll be more careful with her blurs.

I like it. Blurring should be used to show depth from the focal point in any direction with regard to foreground mid-ground and background. In general, the further you get from your focal point, the more blur you use. Randomly blurring stuff confuses the sense of depth. Think of it similarly to atmospheric perspective, except that it can also come into the foreground. Also, your values are laid out in such a way that I find myself looking over the spirit's shoulder, specifically at that strangely forked tree.

Just a bit of personal taste here, but the thorn crown looks like it could use some variation. Obviously, it's not symmetrical in how it grows from the head, but it's pretty similar in how it's laid out and it feels contrived. Additionally, you could have smaller thorn vines wrapping around other parts of the body or somewhere in the forest, just as a way to sort of connect the spirit to the wood...if it's supposed to be a forest spirit anyway. Finally, I'd push the separation of foreground, mid-ground and background a little more. It looks pretty flat at the moment.

Thank you both. I will reapproach the environment in a different way taking what you said David to good use. For now though, here's some edits made to the character. I punched up the colors a bit in some areas, highlights have been added, and shoulder adjusted so that hopefully it looks more like a shoulder (she's supposed to be somewhat broken anatomically in a distorted zombie kind of way). Her overall design could use some more to it but I'm pretty hesitant to work on that now as she's already a character who's difficult to read because of her bizarre features. I'm thinking of giving her a bracelet or some design patterns in her cloak. If you would add something to her design that you think would be cool, feel free to suggest it.

Excuse the environment and composition, it will of course not look like this.

Not technically a paint-over. More of a diagram-over. With some minor anatomical surgery and a bit of gust.

Just have a few other things I think would push it a bit and maybe some of the things I'd try. You may not like my ideas. That's fine. Just tossing them out there in case they might be useful down the road. I'd put this one in my folder of cool pictures from the internet though. Only after it's finished of course.

Haha I really love this "diagram-over." Yeah I think I broke the fingers too much, I like the pose you put them in more. The leaves are much better for composition than the blurry tree trunks I initially had in the scene, I might try some kind of combination. This is actually going to be animated so what I think I'll do is make a few of these changes like with the hands but hold off on some of the effects because how the animation turns out might change how the painting will look, and this image should almost look like a frozen still of the animation. This isn't something I've really done before so the workflow is a little experimental.